LE

Coming back to the Telegraph article, the key paragraph, once again is this:The idea of national service is to mix things up, to force people to break bread with one another, to share experiences, to teach responsibility and self discipline, and perhaps most crucially of all, to instill a greater sense of social cohesion and nationality.

I can see how compulsory military service where people from varied backgrounds, classes and regions are forced together wearing the same uniform and undergoing the same hardships and rigours could develo the characteristics described. I fail to see how two years of changing sheets at the local old folks home could.

Unless I’ve missed something fundamental in the article, the author is clearly talking about compulsory military service in order to socially engineer what he believes to be desirable outcomes.

ADC

Can I put forward my two sons-in-law, neither of which have ever stepped outside their comfort zones since birth! I would contribute all the finances in order to place them both under the loving tender care of a Regimental Sergeant Major; preferably a 'Grenadier'

There was Jones 09 who always felt the strong need to bang away at Jerrie's line, Evans 15, white faced and nervous but squared up, and did his duty, and my batman Williams 51, the most perfect gentleman that I have ever met. They are all gone now, my lovely boys! Pl Comd 2nd RWF Nov 1917.

What is the Armed forces going to do with 725,000 newly enforced recruits each year?
Two years NS, where will the Armed Forces find places to keep @ 1,450,000 extra personnel?
Who's going to train this one and a half million person army?

(Top tip, this thread is NOT about some obscure non NS point you are trying to make… badly)

ADC

What is the Armed forces going to do with 725,000 newly enforced recruits each year?
Two years NS, where will the Armed Forces find places to keep @ 1,450,000 extra personnel?
Who's going to train this one and a half million person army?

(Top tip, this thread is NOT about some obscure non NS point you are trying to make… badly)

LE

I think that the real test of how popular National Service was with those who were inducted is how many opted to sign on for regular service. There were strong incentives to do so. Higher pay and status, enhanced training, career and promotion prospects etc. Few opted to do so. Most got their heads down, did what was required and then got out.

There was no opportunity for the NS man to decide what arm of the forces he was to serve in. Even less choice as to the branch or trade. Little heed was paid to selecting the right man for the job or utilising what skills an individual may have already acquired in civilian life. Similarly, any skills that might have been acquired by the NS man during his service were rarely the kind of skills transferable into civvy street, even less likely that they would be useful to a man in his previous civilian trade or calling to which he had returned.

I understand that one of the few exceptions to the neglect of the 'right man for the job' rule would have been in the case of linguists, where very specific requirements had to be met. Those with higher levels of education would have been identified in the early days of service and found themseves spirited off to Bodmin, Coulsdon or Craill.

National Service was not incepted to provide a career for conscripted men or even to consider his aptitudes for best employment while serving. It was there only to fulfil the high manpower requirements of the retreat from empire. It was all about bums on seats and all too often, the wrong bums on the wrong seats.

It is relatively easy for some old NS men to become misty-eyed about their time once they had come out, but it has to be considered why it was that they did their time and came out. There was every opportunity to do otherwise.

Neither was there any spirited fight from the armed forces for the retention of National Service.

Your mention of linguists and National Security reminds me of a tale in the book 'Field Security' , a book of anecdotes from members of Field Security Sections in WW2 (sadly only available back in the mists of time from the Int Corps Association).
A classically educated gentleman was called up and when interviewed he admitted that in addition to Latin and Greek, obviously, he had a good grasp of hieroglyphics. "What's that then?" asked the interviewer. "The language of the pharaohs" he replied. Guess where he got posted? I'll give you a clue, it wasn't Egypt.

E2A: the book is by Bob Steers, privately published.

Last edited: 19 Aug 2018

retread2

What's the difference between a feminist and an Islamic terrorist? Very occasionally one can negotiate with an Islamic terrorist.

LE

What is the Armed forces going to do with 725,000 newly enforced recruits each year?
Two years NS, where will the Armed Forces find places to keep @ 1,450,000 extra personnel?
Who's going to train this one and a half million person army?

(Top tip, this thread is NOT about some obscure non NS point you are trying to make… badly)

Ha ha...and yet again you fail to see or accept the point that NS does not have to be with the military or Armed forces - or have provided a suggestion of what you think that we could/should do with those who are NEETs.

Guess it also wasn't mentioned enough times previously that there are other alternate versions of it that do not involve war fighting roles Trigger?

Anyhoo, for fun i've read some of your answers on various other threads and i can see where the problem is.

Basically, you come across as a dense, miserable, overweening, negative, uninspiring, cynical, bitter and twisted dullard .
There's hardly any humour, self effacing words or humility in anything that you post, it's mainly all doom and gloom with a large dose of immature ,sneering, it's as if you are trying to get your own back on society , in a hunchback of Notre Dame way... and with your looks, who wouldn't?

It quite clearly shows that you were bullied at skool, classed as borderline Aspie and haven't had much luck with the opposite sex throughout your grey, pleb like existence - and probably a ginger.

No wonder you're such a miserable wretch ....easier to deal with disappointments when you already halfway there - and too thick to see that this is part of your vicious cycle of failure as a human being.

LE

Coming back to the Telegraph article, the key paragraph, once again is this:The idea of national service is to mix things up, to force people to break bread with one another, to share experiences, to teach responsibility and self discipline, and perhaps most crucially of all, to instill a greater sense of social cohesion and nationality.

I can see how compulsory military service where people from varied backgrounds, classes and regions are forced together wearing the same uniform and undergoing the same hardships and rigours could develo the characteristics described. I fail to see how two years of changing sheets at the local old folks home could.

Unless I’ve missed something fundamental in the article, the author is clearly talking about compulsory military service in order to socially engineer what he believes to be desirable outcomes.

LE

Initially removal of all benefits and access to public amenities. Eventually jail. After all, it worked for the USSR.

No sooner did we form into teams than we were re-organised.
I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet every situation by re-organising and what a wonderful method it is for giving the illusion of progress whilst only producing confusion, inefficiency & demoralisation.
PETRONIUS AD 66

LE

That, I think is the nub of the argument. A sense of who's community? See you either want to be part of what you consider to be your community- in which case you'd be like us and join up. But the PC classes keep telling us they don't want to be us. We are the oddity here and there's little point in a NS ethos, if we don't know what that should be, but I do think that the current climate does not favour males, because as a rule they are denigrated.

The powers-that-be learned a lot from the 'pal's army' of WW1.
Yes, it had some up sides, but also many down sides.
When national service came along, the dispersal - for want of a better word - of conscripts was done in a manner where there were very few chaps from the same school/town sent to the same unit.
In the SADF instance, getting dumped in with a bunch of blokes from all over the nation was the norm.
In addition to the language issue, where some blokes spoke not a word of English or Afrikaans, you'd have a fair mix of recruits from cities and farms, hugely diverse educational backgrounds, religions and immigrant cultures.
A melting pot, indeed!
After a few weeks, there'd be a series of postings, as the brighter lads and the thickoes were sent elsewhere.
As far as those with an 'attitude problem' were concerned (ie aggressive fighty types), the military found some very interesting ways for them to divert their energies.
The criminals and drug users also found they had some 'interesting' assignments.
After an illuminating chat with some senior types who knew alllllll about their 'problems'.
Over the top of this was the threat of DB (Detention Barracks). GMF's famous dustbin story comes to mind.
Yes, it is possible to bull polish sand.
Any sentence served didn't count as 'service', so the time spent was tacked on to the end of the conscription.
Desertion was a huge no-no, and getting 2 years+ in DB was not uncommon.
For the majority, just getting on with it and 'vasbyt' (lit. Bite Hard, ie put up with the BS) was the order of the day.

LE

According to wiki, during WW2 there were a few classes of 'conchie'...
unconditional exemption; exemption conditional upon performing specified civilian work (frequently farming, forestry or menial hospital work); exemption from only combatant service, meaning that the objector had to serve in the specially created Non-Combatant Corps or in some other non-combatant unit such as the Royal Army Medical Corps.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that this system was retained post WW2.

LE

A classically educated gentleman was called up and when interviewed he admitted that in addition to Latin and Greek, obviously, he had a good grasp of hieroglyphics. "What's that then?" asked the interviewer. "The language of the pharaohs" he replied. Guess where he got posted? I'll give you a clue, it wasn't Egypt.

There's a lovely bit in CaptainCorelli'sMandolin where an SOE agent is dropped onto the Greek island, he's an academic and speaks beautiful classical Greek - which the simple goat-herder who finds him struggles to understand, but who takes him a messenger from the Gods......